Regional Air Quality Council
Climate Action Plans: Supporting Colorado Municipalities in Local and Regional Climate Action
Jen Shriver
Executive Summary
The Regional Air Quality Council (RAQC) is the lead air quality planning group for the nine-county Denver
Metro/North Front Range Ozone Nonattainment Area. The organization is currently in the process of growing
its capacity to collaborate with its partners in local governments throughout the region to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions.
The RAQC proposes a Capstone Project for the Masters of the Environment program: a group of 3-4 students
would develop and implement climate action and planning with local governments in the region, while also
researching effective regionally coordinated actions, culminating in a Regional Climate Action Forum to take
place in October 2022.
Students will help us advance our work:
- The focus of the forum and of resources developed will be Take Five, encouraging local governments to take the five easiest, the five most effective and the five most popular actions to begin to address the climate crisis.
- Develop case studies of national, international, and Colorado local governments, detailing the actions taken, resources required and available to enact them, and the GHG reductions achieved.
- Research and identify key actions that could be implemented regionally, and their potential impact on greenhouse gas reductions.
- The capstone project will include research and development of detailed action-oriented case studies, organization of these case studies into a web-based resource library, and organization of a local government climate action forum.